Flip-flopping drug defendant lands big time sentence

WEST CHESTER — An Oxford man who authorities contend ran a large, multi-state cocaine trafficking ring, distributing kilogram-sized quantities of the drug in 2010 and 2011, and who flip-flopped between accepting responsibility for his crimes and contending the charges against him, has apparently finally come to conclusion that fighting the case is futile.

But Heraclio Bernal-Cruz’s decision to let his earlier plea of guilty stand as is rather than proceedings to trial came too late to benefit from an offer by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office of a sentence that would give him hope of being released from state prison before turning 60 came too late.

On Friday, Assistant District Attorney Christopher deBarrena-Sarobe, of the DA’s Drug Unit, told Common Pleas Senior Judge Ronald Nagle that his offer to let Bernal-Cruz accept a sentence of 17 to 34 years in prison had expired as of 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Bernal-Cruz now faces “many lifetimes” of incarceration when Nagle sentences him on May 16, deBarrena-Sarobe said. Of the counts against him, there are 38 which carry minimum mandatory sentences of either three or seven years in state prison.

Advertisement

“Do you understand that?” Nagle asked Bernal-Cruz, through court interpreter Edgar Larrea, during the brief proceeding at which his attorney, Oliver Inslee of Philadelphia, told Nagle that his client was prepared to proceed with sentencing. “Yes,” the defendant answered.

“I would like to apologize for having dragged my case on so long,” Bernal-Cruz, wearing handcuffs and in leg braces, told Nagle before being returned to Chester County Prison.

Bernal-Cruz, 34, of Myrtle Street, Oxford, was arrested in April 2012 by state police and charged with hundreds of counts of possession with intent to deliver cocaine, dealing in illegal proceeds, and running corrupt organization. He had been under investigations from September 2010 until July 2011 by members of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for running the drug ring in southern Chester County, Delaware, and Maryland.

An affidavit by Trooper Richard Nadachowski of the state police barracks at Avondale said that since the beginning of the investigation, law enforcement officers had watched cocaine deliveries by confidential informants, interviewed co-defendants, wiretapped telephone calls, and executed search warrants that pointed to Bernal-Cruz of the head of the ring.

Ten other men who either bought cocaine from Bernal-Cruz for further distribution, or sold it to him so that he could pass it along to his cohorts, were also charged in the case. All of those have already pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. They are awaiting sentencing.

In the 10-page affidavit, Nadachowski detailed the multiple times and places that Bernal-Cruz and his associate would trade money for cocaine. The amounts ranged from ˝ an ounce of the drug to several kilograms, and prices from $1,199 an ounce to $30,000 a kilogram.

The trooper said that police had been able to identify the source of Bernal-Cruz’s cocaine as coming from two men, Omar-Lopez Jurado and Roberto Zavala-Zavala. Both were arrested as part of the investigation. Lopez-Jurado later told police that he had been selling large quantities of cocaine that he got from an unidentified man in Indiana.

A confidential informant used by the state police in the investigation told them that he had been buying cocaine from Bernal-Cruz for several months, and that Bernal-Cruz kept it stored in his home on Myrtle Street behind a wall. When he needed to get to the drug stash, he would pull it up with a fish line.

Bernal-Cruz was actually arrested in July 2011 after police witnessed several drug transactions at various locations in and around the Oxford area, including parking lots of a fast food restaurant in Lower Oxford, the Oxford Mall parking lot, and the parking lot at the Shops of Jenner’s Village in Penn. He was held in county prison on those charges, and then charges in April with the larger corrupt organizations’ case.

After serving 16 months in prison, on March 26, 2013 Bernal-Cruz pleaded guilty to 44 counts of possession with intent to deliver cocaine, and the corrupt organization charge. In July, however, he declared that he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea and proceed to trial.

He agreed to have that process halted, however, after one of his former attorneys — Inslee is his fourth attorney overall — asked Nagle to stay the trial while he discussed the case with his client.

Inslee took over the case only a few weeks ago after he was hired by members of Bernal-Cruz’s family and Bernal-Cruz’s court appointed attorney was let out of the case. Inslee told Nagle that he had been given three full boxes of police reports and evidence in the case against Bernal-Cruz, and had met with him several times at the county prison.

Last week, his client told him that he had decided to stop fighting the charges and accept Nagle’s decision on what his sentence should be.

“This is how he wants to proceed,” Inslee told the judge. “He wants to be sentenced.”